Pubdate: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 Source: Portland Press Herald (ME) Copyright: 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. Contact: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/744 Author: Elbert Aull, Staff Writer CHITWOOD'S COLORFUL LANGUAGE ENDS UP ON HOT-SELLING T-SHIRT Michael Chitwood's penchant for tough talk made him an often-quoted public figure in Maine. Now the former Portland police chief is going national. Chitwood's creative slang recently landed his suburban Philadelphia police department on the national news after a couple of officers in Upper Darby, Pa., put one of their favorite Chitwood-isms on the back of a T-shirt. The officers began selling T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "Not in My Town 'Scumbag' " -- a term Chitwood has used frequently to describe drug dealers -- to raise money for a scholarship fund. The T-shirt effort got the attention of both the Philadelphia media and the national cable news earlier this month. So much attention, Chitwood said, that the department has launched an Internet site to handle the shirt sales, which until recently were tying up his department's phone lines. "We were getting e-mails from across the country" after the site went up, said Chitwood, police superintendent in Upper Darby. The T-shirts are for sale at www.scumbagteeshirts.com for $10 each. Chitwood estimated his department has sold around 700 of the shirts and raised about $3,000 for the Dennis McNamara Scholarship Foundation. McNamara was an Upper Darby police officer who was shot and killed on duty in early 2002. His family awards a scholarship to a local high school student interested in poetry or music -- two of McNamara's hobbies -- each year, Chitwood said. Portland Deputy Chief Joseph Loughlin said officers here weren't surprised to see a Fox News report featuring the chief known as "Media Mike" during his time in Maine. "He always threw around a lot of colorful words to get people's attention -- and it works," Loughlin said. Chitwood said the phrase on the T-shirt was intended to send a message to drug dealers in Upper Darby, a community of about 83,000 with a good deal of violent crime. Police conducted 68 drug raids and made 132 arrests during the first 11 months of this year, he said. The shirt also serves as a response to a fashion trend that roiled police and prosecutors in several mid-Atlantic states last year. "This is our response to 'Stop Snitchin,'" Chitwood said, explaining that T-shirts bearing the slogan were popular at the local high school last year. (Snitch is a slang term for a person who gives officials incriminating information about a criminal.) Authorities criticized manufacturers of the snitch T-shirts for possibly encouraging witness intimidation. Chitwood, a Philadelphia native, left Portland for Upper Darby in 2005. He served as Portland's police chief for 17 years and briefly considered a run for governor. - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine